Ian Holloway cannot solve football’s most celebrated ‘poodunnit’ but Crystal
Palace’s manager is adamant that the “complete lunatic” who smeared
excrement in their dressing room before their Championship play-off match at
Brighton was the team’s real match winner.

Indeed, Holloway was happy to offer the mucky miscreant of the Amex Stadium a vote of thanks for inspiring his side to a place in next Monday’s final against Watford at Wembley, accompanied by the cheery salutation: “How stupid are you?”

As their own internal investigation into the defacing of their opponents’ changing room before Palace’s 2-0 second leg win continued, Holloway said he feltBrighton had responded with “dignity” and he was happy for them to resolve the issue, unaided by the police or the Football League.

Yet he was quite clear how the perpetrator of the prank had fired up his star striker, Wilfried Zaha, to net the two late goals which saw Palace power towards the lucrative Wembley date.

“I’d like to thank that person, whoever it was. You did me the biggest favour ever,” he said. “I didn’t have to gee anyone up, I just had to calm them down. So how stupid are you? We were already in the zone but I’ll never forget the look on Wilf’s face.

“I don’t hold what happened against people because I believe things like that always come back on you. Maybe if you want to give credit to whoever that was, he got Crystal Palace to play like that. It never ceases to amaze me how low people will go.

“It must be difficult, with a stadium like that, to stop a complete lunatic trying to spoil what Brighton do. We all know what a good club they are but at the end of the day some stupid person has done that. I trust Brighton will deal with it in the right way.”

“It’s just the silly, nonsensical side of football that we need to get rid of,” Holloway added. “But it’s not as bad as it used to be when people would rip up their own seats and throw them at the away supporters and you had to lock people in cages. So we've moved forward a lot. No one was harmed or hurt at Brighton.”